Girlfriend Charged In W. Side Slaying

September 12, 1985

A 33-year-old West Side woman was charged with murder Wednesday after she allegedly stabbed her boyfriend to death, then fell about 35 feet when she tried to leap to a tree from a fourth-floor window in the apartment where the killing took place. The woman, Francine Hughes, 5021 W. Gladys Ave., was taken to Loretto Hospital after her fall and was treated for bruises before being charged. The victim, Eugene Branson, 39, was stabbed five times with a butcher knife in a quarrel in his apartment at 130 N. Parkside Ave., police said. When neighbors began pounding on the apartment door, Hughes opened a window, leaped to a nearby tree and grabbed a limb, police said. The limb broke and she fell.